Preparing your Azure environment

This topic explains how to prepare your Azure environment before installing Pexip Infinity. It describes how to set up your Resource Group, Virtual Network and Storage Account in your chosen Azure region, and to prepare an SSH key if you intend to use key-based authentication.

This guide assumes you are starting with a fresh Azure portal.

Note that the images shown in this guide depict an example deployment. Unless explicitly stated, you should use your own resource names and address spaces etc. as appropriate for your own environment. Also, as the Azure portal is regularly updated, some images and labels shown here may not directly match the currently available options.

The diagram below shows how the various resource elements that you need to create within the Azure environment are related to each other. This topic explains how to create the shared Resource Group, Virtual Network and Storage Account. Subsequent topics in this guide explain how the prepared disk image is created, and how the Resource Groups are created for your VM instances for each Pexip node.

Using the Azure portal or PowerShell

This guide provides examples of how to complete the tasks using either the Azure portal, or via PowerShell.

When using PowerShell commands you must first sign in to your Azure subscription with the Connect-AzAccount command and follow the on-screen directions to authenticate.

If necessary you can change the subscription context with the command:

Set-AzContext -SubscriptionId "xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx"

where xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx is the ID of the subscription you want to use.

See Running the script via your Windows client for more information about running PowerShell scripts and Azure Resource Manager.

Creating a Resource Group

Resource Groups are logical containers for a collection of resources used for your Pexip deployment.

We recommend that all of your shared resources use the same Resource Group. The shared resources that you should place in this Resource Group include:

  • Network Security Group
  • Virtual Network
  • Storage Account
  • Prepared disk images (these are used to create the individual VM instances for your Conferencing Nodes and Management Node)

When you deploy your Pexip Infinity nodes, we recommend that each VM instance that you create for your Conferencing Nodes or Management Node is deployed in its own Resource Group. This is not a mandatory requirement but it does allow you to subsequently manage each of your VM instance's resources more easily.

Azure portal Powershell
  1. Decide in which region you are going to deploy your Pexip system. You can see the regions and their physical geographic locations at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/global-infrastructure/regions/.

  2. Configure a Resource Group for your shared resources.

    1. To create a new Resource Group, from the Azure portal select Resource Groups and select + Create.

    2. Select your Subscription, enter your Resource group name, select your Region, and then select Review + create.

    3. On the Summary page, select Create.

Use the New-AzResourceGroup command:

New-AzResourceGroup -Name <resource group name> -Location <region name>

For example:

New-AzResourceGroup -Name pexip_resources -Location centralus

Creating a Virtual Network

A Virtual Network allows Azure resources to securely communicate with each other, and is where your VM instances will be deployed. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/virtual-networks-overview for more information.

Azure portal Powershell
  1. From the Azure portal, select Virtual networks, and select + Create.

  2. Configure the Virtual Network's properties:

    1. In Basics > Project details, select your Subscription and Resource group.
    2. In Basics > Instance details, enter your Virtual network name, and select your Region.
    3. Configure the settings in Security if you have these additional services.
    4. Go to IP addresses, enter the IP range and Add a subnet or use the existing default subnet template.
    5. Add Tags for categorizing resources if required.
    6. Select Review + create.

  1. Create the virtual network:

    $virtualNetwork = New-AzVirtualNetwork -ResourceGroupName <resource group name> -Location <region name> -Name <virtual network name> -AddressPrefix <address range>

  2. Add a subnet:

    $subnetConfig = Add-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name default -AddressPrefix <subnet range> -VirtualNetwork $virtualNetwork

  3. Associate the subnet to the virtual network:

    $virtualNetwork | Set-AzVirtualNetwork

For example:

$virtualNetwork = New-AzVirtualNetwork -ResourceGroupName pexip_resources -Location centralus -Name pexip_virtual_network -AddressPrefix 10.0.0.0/24

$subnetConfig = Add-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name default -AddressPrefix 10.0.0.0/24 -VirtualNetwork $virtualNetwork

$virtualNetwork | Set-AzVirtualNetwork

Creating a Storage Account

A general-purpose storage account provides access to all of the Azure storage services, and is used for storing the prepared Pexip Infinity VHD images and VM boot diagnostics. (We recommend that the Azure VMs use managed disks, and thus the VMs are not associated with a storage account.)

Note that a storage account cannot use Premium storage if it is used for VM boot diagnostics.

For more information on Azure disk types see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/disks-types.

Azure portal Powershell
  1. From the Azure portal, select Storage accounts, and select + Create.

  2. Configure the Storage Account's Basic properties:

    1. Select your Subscription and Resource group.
    2. Leave the deployment model as Resource Manager.
    3. Give it a Storage account name.
    4. Select your Region.
    5. Set Performance to Standard.
    6. Set Redundancy to Locally redundant storage (LRS).
    7. Select Review.
    8. Review your inputs and select Create.

Use the New-AzStorageAccount command:

New-AzStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName <resource group name> -Name <storage account name> -Location <region name> -SkuName Standard_LRS -Kind StorageV2

For example:

New-AzStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName pexip_resources -Name pexipastore -Location centralus -SkuName Standard_LRS -Kind StorageV2

SSH keys

If you intend to use an SSH key-based template for deploying your VM instances, you should prepare your SSH keys in advance, and optionally store them in Azure, prior to using the template. (This is because using the Generate new key pair option for the Admin Credential field in the template will generate an error).

 

You now have a Resource Group, Storage Account and Virtual Network for your Pexip deployment.